Power and angle aren't everything
Einhad O'Connor
A storm on the surface of the sun could disrupt communication systems
A spectacular eruption on the surface of the Sun sent charged particles towards Earth yesterday.
According to scientists, these particles could significantly disrupt communications on Earth. "The burst is moving right at us, like a freight train," said John Cole, an astrophysicist specializing in the study of the Sun at the Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In Tokyo, the Japanese Space Agency announced that the function of the Kodama communication satellite had malfunctioned, following the eruption. The agency added that the satellite's activity was temporarily suspended, and it will resume operation after the storm on the surface of the sun subsides.
The explosion of charged gas and particles into space from the outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere does not harm humans, but it can completely disrupt the functioning of communication satellites. This, when some of the emergency teams fighting the fires currently raging in California depend on them.
Similar events in recent years have disrupted television broadcasts, navigation through the GPS system, control measures on oil lines and even the flow of electricity in power lines.
Space weather forecasters warned of a solar storm as early as last week after spotting a new sunspot.
Scientists have compared it to the "Bastille Day storm", which occurred in July 2000. "The Bastille Day storm caused a significant disruption in systems of advanced technology, both those placed on the ground and systems placed in space," said Bill Murtagh, a space weather forecaster who works for the National Administration For the study of the seas and the atmosphere.
The big storm on the sun caused disruptions in communications and airports
The earth has been bombarded for three days now with a huge amount of particles of matter thrown from the sun. This great storm - with its scientific name "Solar Corona Eruption" - is considered to be the third strongest since man began to record these unique events.
A cloud of very energetic particles moves from the sun at a speed of 2,000 km per second, and reaches us within 19 hours. According to one report, more than ten billion tons of gas particles, protons and helium nuclei were thrown from the sun. They create pressure on the Earth's magnetic field, and an induced current penetrates the power lines. The penetration is accompanied by a sudden "bang" like lightning. Don't worry: Earth's inhabitants will not be harmed. However, as a result of that "shock" there may be disruptions in communication systems, electricity, radio, and in communication between airplanes and satellites. The signal transmissions from two Japanese satellites were disrupted, and the activity of one of them was temporarily stopped, until the storm passed, to protect it from damage.
Physicists said yesterday that it is possible that the two storms of yesterday and today, chasing each other as they hit the earth - will unite and their intensity will increase. That is, their effect will be doubled and tripled.
Due to the solar storms, flight controllers at many airports, mainly in the USA, had to postpone take-offs and landings and make changes to the flight schedules, due to the disruptions to communication between the planes.
The storm also creates a spectacular sight in the sky, such as the northern lights visible in the northern regions of the Earth, such as Alaska or northern Europe. Because of the storm - flashes of light were seen from the Northern Lights to southern Mexico.
Astronomer Dr. Noah Brosh, director of Tel Aviv University's observatory at Mitzpe Ramon, said that since the material coming from the sun is thin, the inhabitants of the earth did not absorb its great radiation - "otherwise it would be equal in intensity to the degree of concentrated radiation given in radiation treatments for cancer patients and causes them to lose hair."
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The solar storm that flashed from the Sun to Earth last Friday caused some concern, but caused very minor damage that amounted to the disruption of several aerial communication systems. Another storm, which was supposed to reach the Earth yesterday evening, may be stronger, but it was also not supposed to cause serious damage.
Dr. Bruce Tsurotani, a physicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is investigating the most violent solar storm ever recorded to determine whether another "perfect" magnetic storm, capable of disrupting satellite transmissions and shutting down power systems worldwide, might strike the globe in the future Country.
The storm that Dr. Tsurutani investigates occurred on September 1 and 2, 1859. It shorted telegraph lines and ignited fires in the United States and Europe. After examining records related to the storm, Tsurotani determined that it was caused by a combination of four variables. "There have been solar events more extreme than this event, but they did not meet the four conditions that cause a strong magnetic storm," Tsurotani said. "In September 1859, the four factors worked together."
The series of events that cause a magnetic storm on Earth begins on the surface of the Sun. A solar flare - a burst of electromagnetic radiation - is emitted from a cluster of sunspots and launches a cloud of ionized gas towards the Earth. The gas cloud, known as plasma, moves at a speed of millions of kilometers per hour. According to Tsurotani, a powerful magnetic storm is only caused when the rushing plasma has a strong magnetic field, opposite to that of the Earth. Scientists manage to measure the magnetic field of a storm only about 30 minutes before it hits.
The space storm that raced towards Earth last Friday was moving in the right direction, at high speed and with a fairly strong magnetic field - that is, it met three of the conditions. But according to Tsurotani, the direction of the storm's magnetic field was not opposite to that of the Earth, so it had only a slight effect.
In contrast, the storm in 1859, which reached the Earth in a little more than 17 hours, had a magnetic field opposite to that of the Earth. This is how charged particles managed to break through the upper layer of the atmosphere. Another storm, in 1972, reached the Earth in only 14 hours and had an intensity roughly equal to that of 1859, but the direction of its magnetic field was parallel to that of the Earth.
"In a rough estimate, the potential for another storm exists," Tsurotani said. "But we are still in the early stages of understanding the magnetic storms and the likelihood of their occurrence, because we only know of one case where all the elements happened together."
If the storm of 1859 had hit Earth today, he added, it might have knocked out power systems around the world and created such a severe drag effect on the orbits of low-altitude communications satellites that they might disappear. Scientists at NASA and the European Space Agency are looking for ways to place a satellite closer to the Sun so they can predict the direction of a space storm's magnetic field sooner.
